Ubiquitous in science fiction, rail guns are a hot area of military research in real life too. But will we ever really get to use them the way people in science fiction do? And could rail guns be used for a non-violent reason  inexpensively launching payload into space?

Halo Reach ends with your Spartan taking up a mounted rail gun to destroy an incoming Covenant ship. Rail guns are the basis for a funny aside in Mass Effect 2. They're used in Babylon 5 and Stargate Atlantis and The Last Starfighter. And they're a devastating hand-held weapon in the Metal Gear Solid and Quake series. Now, let's discover the real science behind rail guns. Ejecting pieces of metal at phenomenal velocities The initial theory leading to modern rail guns owes itself to Louis Octave Fauchon-Villeplee, an early 20th Century French scientist who was awarded the patent, Electric Apparatus for Propelling Projectiles. The patent proposed passing current through two strips of aluminum, with an induced force pushing a metal block forward.

Modern rail guns typically make use of two metal rails, a movable armature, and a power supply. Current passes from a positive conducting rail, over the armature, and to a negative conducting rail, creating a magnetic field in the process that sends a projectile resting on or within the armature forward. Laboratory conditions produced velocities of up to 9 kilometers per second using small mass projectiles; nearing the velocity needed for an object on the surface of the planet to escape the gravitational pull of Earth.

Could they, in principle, be effective replacements for bullets and gunpowder?

It all boils down to the size of the power source, and the reduction of resistance. Resistance equals heat, which requires size and complexity and weight to dissipate. Power sources for weapons are usually rather bulky.

With railguns, most of the recoil is actually perpendicular to the direction of the projectile, trying to force the rails apart in both directions. If the rails are bound to each other, the forces net against each other, and basically there is no recoil.

All you need is a reliable power source and you have a portable rifle.

I wouldnt go so far as to say that, but I would say that the power supply may well be the biggest hurdle.

Talisker makes good points on conductors. Making a conductor capable of handling the currents required to launch a projectile at 5000 fps and survive to do it a second time is a major hurdle.

What we may see first is a man portable shoulder fired rail gun anti-tank weapon that is used once and discarded.

Materials that can survive the high current loads are the major problem to overcome in a man portable rail gun. This is why I think a disposable man portable weapon will be the first on the battle field.

It may take high current room temperature superconductors to make a rail gun battle rifle a reality.

18
posted on 03/21/2012 12:48:35 AM PDT
by Pontiac
(The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)

I wouldnt be at all surprised if the first few examples were worse than useless.

Every new technology suffers from a certain amount of failure when it first enters the wilds of the real world.

Considering the messiness of the battle field it is hard to imagine the first battle tested electric battle rifle being an unalloyed success. Water, sand, mud, ice all are enemies of electrical equipment and all are found on the battle field. But given time and the ingenuity of Americans they will be defeated and the American soldier will have a rail gun battle rifle.

21
posted on 03/21/2012 1:37:08 AM PDT
by Pontiac
(The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)

That is a violation of the law of conservation of momentum. True, there are forces acting sideways trying to bend the rails out, but there is a force trying to shorten the rails, as well. The gun cannot push the projectile forward without the projectile pushing back on something.

This is not like RPG where the projectile has a rocket driving it forward unless you have vaporized metal moving in the opposite direction as the projectile.

22
posted on 03/21/2012 3:00:50 AM PDT
by Right Wing Assault
(Dick Obama is more inexperienced now than he was before he was elected.)

Rail guns are the basis for a funny aside in Mass Effect 2. They're used in Babylon 5 and Stargate Atlantis and The Last Starfighter. And they're a devastating hand-held weapon in the Metal Gear Solid and Quake series.

Awright, which one of you cappin' rookies forgot to put Keith Laumer's Bolo novels on the list? [Not only railguns as Bolo *Hellbore* main gun armament, but *smart* guns at that....]

Rail guns are the basis for a funny aside in Mass Effect 2. They're used in Babylon 5 and Stargate Atlantis and The Last Starfighter. And they're a devastating hand-held weapon in the Metal Gear Solid and Quake series.

Awright, which one of you cappin' rookies forgot to put Keith Laumer's Bolo novels on the list? [Not only railguns as Bolo *Hellbore* main gun armament, but *smart* guns at that....]

Just imagine a portable railgun rifle with special laser sighting in the hands of a sniper.

The immediate problem is that the relatively immense power source involved for powering the weapon would be immediately detectable by sensors, negating the sniper's stealth advantage. That's already becoming a problem in sniperville with conventional small arms, hence the proliferation of suppressor/silencer mounts on sniper rifles.

Will we return to the crossbow as a sniper tool? A kinetin-energy launched silent weapon with a terminally guided fire-and-forget projectile, with the effect of a 40mm M203 or GP-30 grenade once it gets there? Stay tuned.

My weapons of choice were an will always be a M79 and a TRW built M1A . Those were my eras fire an forget tools. Albeit a love for the M82A1 Barrett an raufaus recipe fodder did exist the last few years of my career.....

Rail guns ...... Phft....

38
posted on 03/21/2012 5:30:27 PM PDT
by Squantos
(Be polite. Be professional. But have a plan to kill everyone you meet)

Albeit a love for the M82A1 Barrett an raufaus recipe fodder did exist the last few years of my career.....

Rail guns ...... Phft....

Happy news for you: on one range I frequent, the 800-meter targets are two-foot long sections of railroad rail. painted orange and hanging from a short section of chain. And at least twice I've let fly at them with an M82A1/ M107A1, which punches right through if it hits on the bottom web of the rail. IS a rail gun....You have to have on to be with it in this Twenty-First Century....

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